Heartbreaker by Maryse Meijer

room, I reply, shrugging. They don’t think stealing beer is a big deal.
    Bea’s mouth goes hard. You need to do something bigger, like a car, she tells me.
    How?
    It doesn’t matter. Smash the window or something.
    I tell her that auto theft is a lot more serious than filling my pockets at the Super Stop.
    That’s the point, idiot, she says.
    I say You’re crazy, and then she’s mad, and we drive the rest of the way in silence.
    At home she darts out of reach whenever I put my hands out to touch her. Come on, I groan; she shakes her head, stomping around the coffee table, rummaging for cigarettes, the remote, casting me these little pissed-off glances. When I try to talk about something else she turns the TV up louder and louder.
    Okay! I say finally. Okay, I’ll do it, shit, and she yelps and throws her arms around my neck, practically choking me.
    Tomorrow, she says. Do it tomorrow.
    And that’s how I end up with a tire iron in my hand, crouched over the windshield of a red Mustang convertible. The glass spills like kid’s cereal over the pavement and the car alarm goes nuts and the lights flip on in someone’s house and I start running. The cops catch up with me about eight blocks away as I’m trying to hop a fence. Everyone’s shouting and there are flashlights and radios and they tell me, just like in the movies, to put my hands up. They bend me over the squad car to cuff me, someone’s hand on the back of my neck, while the cop radio makes noise.
    What the fuck were you gonna do with this, asshole? one of them says, holding the gun Bea told me to stick in my jeans, and I just laugh. I roll my face into the hood with my mouth open against the white paint so I can tell her later what it tastes like.
    *   *   *
    I get used to prison pretty fast. We have TV and a gym, and we don’t all have to shower at the same time or anything. No one I talk to is a murderer or a rapist; mostly they’re all just thieves or drug addicts and we play cards and talk about our girlfriends and that’s it. Sometimes there’s a fight or someone pisses on the floor but the prison guards are mellow and you know exactly what to expect out of your day.
    At night I write letters to Bea. Five sheets per envelope per week, and I write as small as I can. I tell her how dangerous it is, how hard I’m getting fucked, how because I’m the skinniest guy in here I’m automatically the pussy. I tell her they make me shave my balls, that they choke me, that they come in my mouth and I have to swallow or else they’ll beat the shit out of me. And I tell her that I like it, that even though it hurts and I’m afraid of them, I want it. I tell her I get hard and I come and they beat me for that, too. I tell her that no one uses condoms and I could get a terrible disease, I could die in here and no one would stop it from happening. She writes back and tells me what to say, how to act, how to let guys know they can use me. She signs every letter with a string of x ’s and o ’s half a page long and I put them over my face, imagining I can smell her hands, the Candy Apple lotion that I like so much, before tucking the pages beneath my pillow.
    *   *   *
    Which one do you share with? she asks during our first visiting hour. She looks incredible, in a short black dress with little red flowers on it and her hair puffed way out.
    I jerk my head in the direction of the biggest man, black and bald, with arms like fire hydrants, talking to a woman who looks like his mom. Leaning way back in her chair Bea checks him out, eyes narrowed, and when the chair tilts forward again she’s grinning.
    What’s his name?
    Leroy, I say.
    What’s his prison name?
    Big, um, Big—Big Daddy.
    He wants to pretend he’s your dad?
    No, it’s more like, he just wants to be in charge, you know?
    How big? she asks. How big is it?
    I hesitate,